The wounding last week of Statesboro Advanced Police Officer Joey Deloach was a sobering reminder that being a police officer is an inherently dangerous job.

I don’t come to work wondering if the next person I interview for a story may try to harm me. But that is the case in the interactions that many law enforcement officers face every day.

And, as we know, some law enforcement officers do overreact in critical situations, or, worse, intentionally use the shield of their badge to injure someone or commit crimes. While those cases, rightfully, gather a lot of media attention, they reflect the actions of only a tiny percentage of officers around the nation.

Two incidents last week involving Statesboro police officers demonstrate the unique decisions they face – life and death decisions – and, perhaps more importantly, how they implement the training they go through all the time.

The first instance was the wounding of APO Deloach, which, thankfully he is recovering from and, in fact, was released from the hospital Thursday and is beginning his rehabilitation at home.

For the purposes of this column, however, I want to focus on the second incident.

On April 19, a post appeared on the Statesboro Police Department Facebook page about how officers were called to a scene at a public place where a man said he had a gun and was going to shoot anyone who came near him. The incident ended without injury despite officers facing direct threats with a weapon in plain sight. Also, as it turned out, the weapon was a BB handgun, which would be impossible to differentiate from a real handgun without close inspection. (A photo of the BB handgun appears with this column.)

I asked Statesboro Police Chief Mike Broadhead to recount the actions of his officers from receiving notice of the threat, preparing a plan to deal with it and then how it actually played out. 

The man in question was inside one of the fence-enclosed baseball fields at Mill Creek Park. It was the afternoon, and though there was no one inside that particular field, there were plenty of people at the park, Broadhead said. 

Mill Creek Park incident

“When we get the call, we immediately understand this may be a mental crisis issue we’re facing,” Broadhead said. “The police officers I've been around here and throughout my career have all shown a tremendous amount of restraint. None of them want to hurt people.

“In a case like this, you know they're going to go as a team (of four). That's step one. They're going to make sure that their approach has cover so that gives them a little bit of extra time. That's what we're always trying to buy is a little extra time. 

“Let us sort it out. Let us figure out what's really happening. How much of a threat really is it? And the only way to do that is to give yourself a little time. By making your initial approach in a way that keeps barriers – cover – and if it will stop a bullet coming at you.

“You're going to try to keep that between you until you can get close enough to establish a line of communication with the person. 

“Our guys are really well-equipped, so they had several options available to them. They had pepper spray if they could get close enough and felt the need to use it. Tasers, if they get close enough.

“We also have these little pepper ball guns where you can shoot a paint ball at somebody and when it impacts them, it releases a tiny amount of pepper spray. We have 12-gauge shotguns that have bean bag rounds in them that can hit somebody almost like a baton, but from a distance.

“The officers have all those tools that are at their disposal. We make sure that as part of our commitment to training – everybody has to have training on all that equipment before they can use it. And we train on use of force a lot. 

“Also, there's always a component of de-escalation involved in all training. I don't care what, whether we're shooting at the range, there's a component of de-escalation involved. When we're taking a class on how to use the pepper ball gun, there's a component of de-escalation.

A plan in action

“All of these things then come together when you have a critical incident like the one at Mill Creek. 

“They approach as a team. They communicate with each other. They approach in a safe way. They make contact with the guy verbally and try to start assessing his condition.

“They do what they can to separate him from the gun. They were able to do that and as he stepped away from the gun, officers were able get more behind the guy, so when he balled his fists up and started walking pretty aggressively towards the officers, the other officers were able to walk up behind him, hit him with a taser and take him into custody without anybody getting hurt.”

So, a man who has threatened to shoot people, has what you believe is a gun next to him and is angrily arguing with you. How did that situation end without serious incident, I asked Chief Broadhead. 

“To me, it's a combination of picking the right people to be police officers,” he said. “Having a robust training program and then being properly equipped. 

“Still, even if you do all those things, we can never eliminate risk in our business. It's just not possible. But what we can do is mitigate risk. And how we mitigate risk is through training and proper tactics and having good equipment that we make sure is all serviceable and ready to go for every shift. 

“And then, what happened at Mill Creek Park, is a good example of all those factors working together to get the best possible outcome for everyone involved.”

While people publicly threatening to shoot people, thankfully, is not an every-day occurrence here, our local law enforcement agencies must train and prepare for such situations, or worse, every day. It’s a part of their job we don’t see that lessens the dangers they face and makes where we live safer.